The present disclosure relates to mobile payment transaction processing systems.
Financial transactions relating to purchasing goods and services are predominately paid for using credit accounts and debit accounts that an account owner accesses through associated credit cards and debit cards. Financial transaction processing systems provide verification processes that allow merchants to verify that account information is valid and the account owner has sufficient credit or debit funds to cover the purchase.
When a purchaser having a physical credit card is located at the merchant's facility, the merchant has been responsible for authenticating that the purchaser is the credit card owner by, for example, comparing the purchaser's signature to an existing signature on the credit card and/or examining a picture ID of the purchaser. In contrast, mobile payment systems have emerged that eliminate the use of physical credit cards by allowing purchasers to wirelessly communicate information from their mobile terminals through short-range communication interfaces to merchants' point-of-sale (POS) terminals. The POS terminals are typically mounted to check-out counters or are transportable to purchasers. An application on the mobile terminal queries a user to enter a correct personal identification number (PIN) or password in order to trigger the mobile terminal to communicate mobile payment information through a Near Field Communication (NFC) link or another radio frequency, magnetic, or other communication link to the POS terminal for authorization and further processing by a financial transaction processing system.
Although the security of mobile payment systems is an improvement over use of physical credit cards, security weakness still exist due to, for example, the ability for sophisticated fraudsters to operate POS terminals in a way that fraudulent emulates presence of a mobile terminal operated by an account owner.